Top Stories: Dallas County Welcomes New District Attorney; Former North Texas Food Bank CEO Dies

Jan Pruitt, former President and CEO of North Texas Food Bank, died Tuesday.

North Texas Food Bank

The top local stories this evening from KERA News:

Dallas County’s new district attorney was sworn in today. Faith Johnson, a former prosecutor and felony court judge, is the county’s first African American female DA.

Johnson, a Republican, was a Dallas prosecutor for nearly eight years and a judge for 17 years. She was most recently a Department of Public Safety commissioner. Her predecessor, Republican Susan Hawk, resigned for health reasons.

KERA’s Bill Zeeble was at the ceremony where Johnson said she was excited and grateful to both God and Republicans.

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The KERA Radio story

Other stories this evening:

Jan Pruitt, former President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank, died today after a battle with cancer. Pruitt stepped down from her position last month to focus on her health. In her 20 years with the food bank, she helped it go from serving 11 million to 70 million meals across 13 counties in North Texas. You can learn more about Pruitt in a profile by KERA’s Courtney Collins, which aired last week.

Today was the first day KERA’s talk show, Think, aired on public radio stations across the state. Host Krys Boyd talked with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, about what the election of Donald Trump says about America.

A Houston-based program, Genesys Works, gives disadvantaged teenagers real-world work experience before they graduate from high school. Laura Isensee of our partner station KUHF in Houston sat down with Eloisa Cortinas, a senior at Alief Hastings High School, and her mentor, Maria Carlota Palacios, who manages community relations for the energy company, Williams. Cortinas talks about how she wants to go into financial advising for low-income women.

It was a David and Goliath story on the college football field in Arlington. Only this time, Goliath won. Wisconsin beat Western Michigan at the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. The score was 24-16.

You can listen to North Texas stories weekdays at 8:22 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. on KERA 90.1 FM.

Faith Johnson will be sworn in as Dallas County District Attorney on Monday. She was appointed in December by Governor Greg Abbott to replace Republican Susan Hawk – who resigned to focus on her mental health.

2016 had its ups and downs, but at least it sounded sweet. Art&Seek’s Hady Mawajdeh takes a look back at the year in Texas music with two music experts: KXT’s Amy Miller and Moody Fuqua, the creative director of Club Dada and Off The Record.

The state’s largest health insurer and the region’s biggest hospital system agreed to renew their contract a day before the previous deal was set to expire. The new contract means that more than 150,000 people in North Texas will be able to keep their in-network health care providers.